An Ethnographic Inventory

Field Devices for Anthropological Inquiry

Tomás Sánchez Criado, Adolfo Estalella, Tomás Sánchez Criado, Adolfo Estalella

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781032124391
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000851472
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides an inventory of modes of inquiry for ethnographic research and presents fieldwork as an act of relational invention. It advances contemporary debates in ethnography by arguing that the empirical practice of anthropology is and has always been an inventive activity. Bringing together contributions from scholars across the world, the volume offers an expansive vision of the resourcefulness that anthropologists unfold in their empirical investigations by compiling inventive social and material techniques, or field devices, for anthropological inquiry. The chapters seek to inspire both novel and experienced practitioners of ethnography to venture into the many possibilities of fieldwork, to demonstrate the essential creative and inventive practices neglected in traditional accounts of ethnography, and to invite anthropologists to confidently engage in inventive fieldwork practices.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Contributors
• Introduction: The ethnographic invention
• Interlude I The principle of invention (Outside in)
• 1 How to counter-map collectively
• 2 How to produce responsive ethnography of data
• 3 How to use disconcertment as ethnographic field-device
• 4 How to draw fieldnotes
• 5 How to do a digital epidemiography
• 6 How to make ethnographic research with exhibitions
• 7 How to write fieldpoetry
• 8 How to flow with materials
• 9 How to game ethnography
• 10 How to get caught in the ethnographic material
• 11 How to devise collaborative hermeneutics
• 12 How to set ethnography in motion
• 13 How to use Pathosformeln in anthropological inquiry
• 14 How to perform field encounters
• 15 How to invent childhood publics with photo-stories
• 16 How to remediate ethnography
• 17 How to disrupt our field habits with sensory probes
• 18 How to stitch ethnography
• Interlude II An elimination dance (a history of disciplining the field/s)
• Interlude III The politics of invention
• Conclusion: Taking inventory
• Index